Quotes About Intellect

Can the knowledge deriving from reason even begin to compare with knowledge perceptible by sense?

I like being surrounded by students and intellectuals.

My goal is to be surrounded by books.

It's not all about looks. If someone can sustain a good intellectual 'conversation, I find that very 'attractive.

Writing and thinking is not economically sustainable.

The level of discourse in this country is falling to a depth that cannot be sustained.

Human beings are accustomed to think of intellect as the power of having and controlling ideas and of ability to learn as synonymous with ability to have ideas. But learning by having ideas is really one of the rare and isolated events in nature.

Your 'hara' is here, where your uterus is if you're a woman, where the tummy sticks out if you're a man, the centre of gravity of the human body. It is the synthesis of our intellect, body and spirit, and by developing our consciousness of it, we can become incredibly rooted.

Eco argues that the upswing in population size, energy, intellect, and the economy all derived from a new crop. It was in the tenth century that Europeans began the widespread cultivation of beans.

His eyes gravitated towards the wall-to-wall bookshelf at one end of the room. 'You folks like books, I see.

You know a lot of things, Uncle,' Gillian said, patting him on the shoulder as if he were a noble steed. 'Learned form books,' Clay promised her. 'You'll know as much once you read more of them. In fact, you'll know more than I do, because new books are always being written.

It is the purification of the intellect which prepares for contemplation.

Simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds.

La seule fréquentation des mathématiques ne mûrit guère le cÅ"ur ni le caractère.

Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess.

This result could have been achieved either by his [God] endowing my intellect with a clear and distinct perception of everything about which I would ever deliberate, or simply by impressing the following rule so firmly upon my memory that I could never forget it: I should never judge anything that I do not clearly and distinctly understand.

Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those most difficult to please in all other matters never desire more of it than they already possess.

For there is hardly any question in the sciences about which clever men have not frequently disagreed. But whenever two persons make opposite judgements about the same thing, it is certain that at least one of them is mistaken, and neither, it seems, has knowledge. For if the reasoning of one of them were certain and evident, he would be able to lay it before the other in such a way as eventually to convince his intellect as well.

la lectura de todos los buenos libros es como una conversación con los mejores ingenios de los pasados siglos

I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error.

I like to have nice conversations with a man that teach me something, make me mad, make me curious. Then I find him attractive.

I had a classics professor at the University of Illinois who after giving a reading assignment said, with genuine emotion, "Oh, to be reading Boethius for the first time." And so I say to you, "Oh, to be reading a Nero Wolfe mystery for the first time." —Stuart M. Kaminsky

college honors, honors in my major, and Phi Beta Kappa.

Faith is a matter of the will as much as it is of the intellect. I wanted to believe in Jesus. My friend wanted to believe in himself. In spite of how convincing my reason was, my reason was not compelling.